ARTSBEAT; Artist’s Play Poster Makes Action Abstract

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

Published: March 7, 2013

outbreak of violence between patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in the West Village, and New York City police over the course of several June and July nights in 1969.

“It was a big deal,” he said. “I don’t remember a whole lot, just the news coverage, and seeing drag queens and police vans.”">

Frank Fraver was 19 when he heard about an outbreak of violence between patrons of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar on Christopher Street in the West Village, and New York City police over the course of several June and July nights in 1969.

“It was a big deal,” he said. “I don’t remember a whole lot, just the news coverage, and seeing drag queens and police vans.”

Recently Mr. Fraver, a graphic designer best known for his theatrical posters, summoned the spirits of the Stonewall rebellion in his artwork for “Hit the Wall,” a new Off Broadway play set during the unrest. From afar the poster features what appear to be bits of shattered glass with touches of pink. But the shards actually form a stylized map of the streets surrounding the Stonewall, where gay patrons fought back against the police for the first time. A pink triangle notes the location of Christopher Park on Seventh Avenue South, one of several sites where protesters and the police battled.

The poster “gives the impression of something being shattered or broken or explosive,” Mr. Fraver said. “It had a lot of action as an abstract form, and that appealed to me.”

“Hit the Wall,” written by Ike Holter and directed by Eric Hoff, comes to New York after it made its debut last year as part of the Garage Rep series at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. It is now in previews at the Barrow Street Theater in the West Village, blocks from the Stonewall, which is still in business.

Mr. Fraver recently spoke with Erik Piepenburg about the connections between maps and posters, and the difference between pink and “drag queen pink.” Following are excerpts from the conversation.

Q.

You were in New York when the Stonewall riots happened. What do you remember about that night?

A.

I was at Pratt studying illustration and graphic design. I was probably as far away from a militant art student as I could be. I wasn’t politically savvy, but I was aware of this happening. It was a pretty big deal.

Q.

Your artwork for “Hit the Wall” has a very bold, very graphic quality to it. Talk about how that came together.

A.

It’s basically a very stark graphic map of a few blocks of the area around the triangle around Christopher Park. To my mind what makes it more unusual than a standard map is that it’s on black, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen for a map. It wouldn’t be useful. It’s startling.

The thing I came away with from my discussion with the producers was how important the geography of that section of town was to how the story of Stonewall played out. If I remember correctly everything was happening so quickly, and the police were trying to cordon things off, but it’s such a maze in that spot. There are all those side streets and all those nooks that the people who were familiar with the area were using to get around the police, rather than the police cornering them. I thought that was an interesting take.

I think that’s what got me started on fooling around with the map. I thought it was too abstract and I would have to explain it to the producers before they dismissed it. But they reacted strongly to it.

Q.

The poster is both a map and a graphic treatment in many ways. What were you hoping to do by combining both approaches?

A.

As a graphic designer I’m sensitive to the fact that the power of any graphic is that someone can interpret what it is the second they look at it. But if they have no idea what it is then it’s no longer a successful graphic. When I did this, not being a big fan of maps to begin with, I tried to get as far away from the concept of a traditional map by having it be on black, and to simplify it as much as possible. The only designation on it is where the Stonewall Inn is. The pink triangle is Christopher Park, which is triangular. It’s not a perfect triangle like it is in the poster but it’s pretty triangular. Otherwise the image can be broken glass, or something that shattered.

Q.

The pink triangle for decades has been a symbol of the gay rights movement. Besides being a marker on the poster, what appealed to you about incorporating it into your design?

A.

I thought it was a strong graphic and also told a bit of the story of gay history. I really remember seeing it a lot around campus in the early ’70s. It was kind of like the fallout from Stonewall. The original use of the pink triangle was in the concentration camps of World War II to designate homosexuals. No one used that for a period, but it was resurrected eventually to symbolize the opposite of oppression. It was replaced by the rainbow flag much later.

Q.

The colors are pretty straightforward, just black, white and pink, the same colors on signage used by Act-Up. Why so minimal?

A.

The simpler it can be the more powerful. My favorite theater colors are black, white and red. I think I was trained that way from when I first started designing. Color printing was expensive to do, so many times were were asked to design in two colors or less. It’s ingrained in me that that is the most theatrical.

Here I replaced the red with magenta. I call it pink in meetings but the actual true color is magenta. It’s a really bright pink, not baby pink. It’s drag queen pink.

Q.

Let’s talk about one of your alternative designs. It’s a colorful treatment that features the face of a shouting man. What did you like about this approach?

A.

I was fond of that. I wanted to try to get a sense of how up in arms everyone was that evening, and the power of people having had enough of a bad thing. I thought his expression was not horrifying, but you get a sense of taking over, of someone who is speaking his mind. With the colors I wanted to get to the beginning of the ’70s, with day-glo, op-art colors. I took my lead from Andy Warhol’s cows, that deep magenta and yellow.

Normally the words would be on the left, but I thought it would be nice to read it at a different tilt. In passing this on the street you might stop because of the configuration of the type.

Q.

Why do you think it wasn’t chosen as the final artwork?

A.

Maybe they thought it was too angry and off putting, that you’d go to the theater and someone would be screaming at you, which I guess makes sense. But I’m only guessing. Once they were smitten with the map I didn’t ask why. I’m happy when clients are happy.